Paxman in public attack on Newsnight editor on dumbing down

Newsnight Rottweiler Jeremy Paxman, well-known for savaging politicians with his abrasive interviewing style, has now locked his jaws on his own show and given it a mauling.

The formidable presenter, live on air, accused the programme's editor Peter Barron, of turning the programme into a joke.

His outburst, which surprised the show's loyal viewers, came after the audience were invited to make a two-minute programme about an issue they cared about as part of the channel's Oh My Newsnight section.

But the plan for viewers to send in their films to a video-hosting website, to be judged, clearly did not meet Paxman's definition of cutting edge journalism.

Instead he apparently suggested the flagship current affairs was being dumbed down, claiming the moves were making the show like a version of "Animals Do the Funniest Things".

He said on Wednesday nights show: "That's all from Newsnight tonight. Martha [Kearney] is being punished for some offence in a previous life by presenting tomorrow's programme.

"In the meantime, it's all available on the website, along with the editor's pathetic pleas for you to send us some bits of you old memories and the like, so we can become the BBC's version of Animals do The Funniest Things. Goodnight."

The BBC is claiming that Paxman's comments were a joke. Barron also claimed it was a joke and had not been offended by the comments.

Paxman recently found himself in hot water with Clarence House after his recent book On Royalty claimed that Prince of Charles has seven boiled eggs made for him every morning so that he could choose the perfect level of runniness. The story was completely denied by Prince Charles' aides.

The presenter is one of the corporation's highest paid star with a reported annual salary of £1million. He is believed to earn about £240,000 for asking questions on BBC2 long-running quiz University Challenge - the equivalent of £7,741 a show.

On top of this he gets about £700,000 for his Newsnight presenting role, making his total package a long-way ahead of most of the corporation's other high-profile news presenters like Fiona Bruce and Huw Edwards.

Despite his tough image Paxman recently broke down in tears during a BBC2 documentary after he uncovered long lost details about an ancestor who lived in poverty and died at the age of 36 in the genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?, which saw him follow his roots back to working class Glasgow.

• Animals Do the Funniest Things is a prime-time ITV1 show, which is presented by Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Tony Blackburn and features amusing videos of people's pets.

• The BBC's current affairs and news has previously come under fire for dumbing down after the corporation announced that it would be cutting its flagship investigations programme Panorama down to 30-minutes next year.

• The BBC is believed to want to make the show more accessible, with suggestions it might even make a Panorama about WAGs - the wives and girlfriends of England footballers.